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Pittsburgh City-County Building

Architect
Henry Hornbostel
Year
1917
Style
Neoclassical
City
Pittsburgh, PA
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The Pittsburgh City-County Building at 414 Grant Street, completed in 1917, is the third seat of government the city has built and was designed by Henry Hornbostel in the Neoclassical style. It replaced the outgrown Smithfield Street City Hall of 1868-1872, a building overwhelmed after Allegheny City's 1907 annexation added 130,000 residents to Pittsburgh. Mayor William A. McGee pushed the project through in 1909 by proposing the sale of the old City Hall and Public Safety Building to help finance it.

the building

A Supreme Court courtroom. Beyond housing city and county offices, the building contains a courtroom used for the Pittsburgh sessions of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, an unusual function for a municipal building.

the style

Hornbostel designed the building in the Neoclassical style, the standard idiom for early-20th-century American civic architecture, giving the growing city an authoritative, monumental seat of government to match its post-annexation population.

More on Neoclassical

the architect

Henry Hornbostel was a major figure in Pittsburgh civic architecture in this period; the City-County Building was one of the projects that shaped how the city's government presented itself downtown at Grant Street.

significance

The City-County Building is a Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation Historic Landmark. It has served since 1917 as the city's seat of government, its third, with Allegheny County's own offices now located in adjacent facilities.

nearby

All 71 buildings in Pittsburgh